Photoshop Elements - Smart Albums

My investigations are continuing with Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (PSE6). And this post looks at the new feature called Smart Albums.

They are based on the same concept as the Smart Playlist in iTunes. That is, they are defined searches - rather than specific, static items - so that the Album contents always stays current.

It is a good feature to include, and in general seems well done. But, I've encountered a few usability issues which seem important.

1. User Interface to Modify a Smart Album

This seems strange. The problem is that there are two different "edit" operations - the most obvious seems to be to select the Smart Album, and then the Edit toolbar icon. In this case, I've selected the album called "Smart Taxis".



Indeed, the hover text indicates "Edit Smart Taxis Album". When you select this action, you get a dialog which only allows you to change the name! It conveniently tells you about the criteria though.


To modify the search criteria, you instead need to follow this process:

1. Active the smart album, by selecting it from the Album palette
2. From the organizer, select the Options pulldown
3. Then select "Modify Search Details"
4. You then, finally, see the dialog - which is entitled "Find by Details (Metadata)"
   
5. You then still need to make the changes you need, and if you want to change that same album, select the check box and type your original name, and press "Search" ??
   
   
6. A helpful dialog then tells you that this album exists, and would you like to replace it.
   

OMG! In doing this post, I've just realized that it doesn't replace your album - PSE6 adds another album - with the same name.

To be slightly fair, the dialog text doesn't actually say it's going to replace that album - it says "Click OK to create a Smart Album with this name anyway". I guess it could be seen as helping to provide some form of version control. But still, it doesn't seem terribly obvious.

What's going on here?

It seems that there is a basic disconnect between the two halves of the screen - the Organizer on the left - with the find bar showing Search Criteria - and the Album palette on the right - which talks in Albums.

2. Smart Album search criteria

Unfortunately, some of the search criteria available seems a little restrictive - that is, a bit lacking in flexibility. Some examples may help to illustrate:

1. Can't use "not Include" with the "Keyword Tags" search - only Include:
   
   
   
   
2. Can't use Smart Albums as the argument with the "Albums" search. The only albums presented in the list are standard (static) Albums.
   
   
   
   This would allow for a tree structured, or nested style search. This is also something which iTunes seems to manage ok.
   

I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones which seem to leap out.

Conclusion

Smart Albums is a good start - but it would nice to see them just a little bit smarter ... and easier to use.